Tonight, the Asshole in Chief. Thief of the Truth. The Rotten Orange Who Spoiled A Nation, is going to spew some falsehoods speciousness, deliberate lies and fantasies over broadcast TV. The Social Media participants are raving and roiling and cursing and nasty and demeaning this farce – as they should be. You know who you are. I join you in your disgust. But I have come up with a BRILLIANT solution. Bigly. Yuuuuuge. Cheap – Free actually, no special skills needed.

JUST DO NOT WATCH IT. DO NOT WATCH IT. DO NOT LISTEN TO IT. CHANGE THE CHANNEL. PICK YOUR NOSE. BETTER STILL. READ A BOOK, PLAY SOME MUSIC. GO TO BED EARLY. JUST SAY NO.

No frills solution. Those who decide to view it. DO NOT REHASH it to those who took my sage advice. It will be just as bad as you think and editorializing is for the media. Don’t even listen.

I have been informed that I have made some errors in this post. There are 51 sets of sexual assault laws in this country. They can be found on findlaw.com. These are the 50 states and Federal law. I did not check all of them and I did not include territories or possessions, however each body of laws regarding sexual crimes have various types, sentencing recommendations and those that cross state lines become federal. What I sensed in those I read was that various degrees of these crimes exist but I also think – only my opinion – that they should be codified better throughout the various legal systems. And I hold to the idea that the accused and the abused should both have due process. I should add that sexual crimes are very complicated and very much disagreed upon globally. But indeed they are, in this country, set down by each state and the federal government and guidelines, statutes and many laws exist. I apologize for not researching this better and I hope that simply by searching a state’s sex crimes law on the Internet these resources will answer questions I cannot. I am not in law enforcement nor am I an attorney. This post has been edited to reflect my errors.

What happens when you unleash predators and dump them into a big cage with room for many, many more? Some are misdemeanor predators with only one egregious act to their name and others are serial predators who would still be doing it if they had not been exposed. It’s a valid question because every crime on our books has degrees of offenses. Sexual crimes do as well (see above) – I would guess because it has been ignored, not believed, excused or just plain denied by the offenders or the legal and LE systems these laws may slip through the cracks. It has a statute of limitations in some states so if you got assaulted 26 years ago – time has run out and the offender walks.

For many reasons – that of shame, trauma and fear of not being believed,what are considered criminals among us who don’t get charged and we have #metoos who do not get their day in court. All these particular offenses are are not equal and herein lies the rub (sorry). Is a pinch on the butt equal to a rape in an alley? Is workplace harassment comparable to a gang rape in a fraternity house or at a party. Is substance abuse a factor? Is domestic abuse with rape the same as rubbing up in subway car? Can a husband rape a spouse legally.Is flirting frought with danger. Is it an invitation or is it so complicated a message it can be a crime to even do it? You know the variations on this theme and you also know that the acts themselves are not all the same. They may make us feel violated and threatened and dirty; but they are not all the same.

Those accused – whom we so readily name and those who are not named but pointed at – areoften not charged and therefore not proven guilty. The millions of #metoos are still only making accusations. And while these offenses include the murdering of the souls and psyches of the women and male victims who have been abused and violated, there are still very broad interpretations of such crimes by judges and juries. Frequently the evidence in any court would be one word against the other. I suspect even lawyers on both sides have issues with this problem.

How could you apply a statute of limitations on better defined degrees or would all sexual high crimes and misdeanors be treated exactly the same. Anthony Weiner provided proof of his own aberrations – and he made himself the villain because he was the villain. He is in the fedslam. He has been disgraced and he is being punished through the legal system. Due process.

Because a culture of fear and shame denied the violated, the violated were denied due process. I think if I were so inclined, I would sue those who perpetuated this. And if I were in the legal arena, I would collect all the evidence available and bring causes of action in each case that could be a cause of action. I would not favor the race or age or gender of the accused or their value to a college or a career or a future. Let Justice be blind. We are a nation of accomplished finger pointers. We use reputations to defame and extol many people who deserve neither. But I am more concerned with the way in which these crimes or alleged crimes (because people do lie) are handled and have been handled. And I speak personally; that not all people violated have their lives ruined. Many do, but many don’t. There are those of us who can relegate memories to a place where #metoo no longer has a daily impact or incessant pain. We are the fortunate ones.

While members of the Congress and commerce are resigning in droves and without due process we are committing further injustice and a rush to judgment outside the courts of law. This is wrong too.

I do not claim to have answers that are effective in the moment. But the crimes of a sexual nature; the rapes, the rubs, the feel-ups, the date rapes, the marital rapes, the campus rapes the injury, the accused who do go on trial, the anger, the retaliation all have to be placed in a context that other crimes against society and people are placed. This body of crime has existed for all of humanity. Some sought power, some sought satisfaction, some went nuts in war and kept on abusing. But in any context – this is not new. And as such we need to make it fit into our legal system better and be adjudicated as we do many other offenses.

So the 45s have turned into the Borgias. This may be one of the best examples of diverting attention from the now to events in then. Instead of concentrating on the immediate issues at hand; the lack of action in the Congress and the White House, the lack of intelligence in the government, the never-ending suspicions – yea – beliefs that the 2016 Election was a joint effort by The US and Russia, the lies, high crimes and misdemeanors that rouse no anger or suspicions, we dig up the good old “Who Killed JFK” tamasha. This one never crossed my mind, but the plan is brilliant and evil.

Those who still remember that day in Dallas – 54 years ago(!!!!!) are still fascinated by the entire story. Theories, conspiracies, facts, lies, the size dress Mrs. Kennedy wore, the grassy knoll, the unanswered questions, Jack Ruby and the weeping are a never healing suppurating wound in the side of this nation.

Is this the fiddle that the 45’s have found to accompany the nation’s perpetual dirge? Gone are the perps ; their due process null and void. The people in the painful images of those days are mostly dead. The last child standing is a grown woman. Does he want really yearn for this “history” to be further told. Why not just disinter the corpses and have them be questioned. Or preserved under glass and laid in the rotunda? Was this one of “promises” and did I miss it. No wonder he stays up all night. Stephen Miller at his finest hour (his folks must be so proud). Or maybe he had never heard of it before?

I must note that of all the dirty, nasty red herrings the 45’s have tossed, stinking, into the last 22 months – this one defies description.

On April 26, 2017 – Strushie the cat – a fixture at the Franklin Hotel in South Beach, Miami, Florida was killed intentionally by an employee. There is not term for this crime. I suspect the reason is because under various circumstance animals can be killed for reasons for which we arrest humans who kill humans. It is however a felony. I would say generally if an annoying animal makes their home on your property and you object – calling animal control would seem the best choice. Strushie and his several alleycat mates had been living in the Florida sunshine and being fed on the premises for years. Strushie often sat in the lobby and was welcomed by staff and tourists alike.He was well liked and gentle.

The Franklin – touted as one of Miami’s South Beach landmarks of the Art Deco period was recently sold. The cats went along in the deal. The people still fed them and smiled at them and liked them. Just an added perk to this small, boutique hotel with security ; cameras and lights and location in a sweet South Beach spot. I wonder how business is under the new ownership?

I wonder more though, why Strushie was singled out; and he was. An aggressive employee decided – perhaps on his own – or perhaps at the behest of the new owners that Strushie was annoying. I have heard conflicting reports. But on or about April 26, 2017 Strushie was stalked by determined man armed with small crossbow, who cornered him and shot two arrows through his head. The injuries did not kill Strushie who ran away and was discovered, rushed to vet and died despite valiant efforts to save his life. He was shot with malice aforethought with a very lethal weapon at close-range then hidden in a room the killer appeared to occupy in the Franklin. Did I mention his name? Georgios Lollias – one of the Franklin’s valued staff.

The crime was covered up with denials from the Franklin’s owner and excuses that the cameras were down that day and no one saw anything. Strushie, ironically, got the Kitty Genovese treatment. But animal lovers are a very devoted lot. Very devoted. And one such person started a Care2.org petition to get justice for Strushie online And she did. Pressure from the public, animal groups, outraged citizens and foreigners made such a hue and cry (and in these days of social media – hueing and crying has become a daily devotion) that investigators from local law enforcement and the City of Miami began to seek the monster who committed this crime. And the U.S.Secret Service entered the fray because it wanted to retrieve the data from the cameras not working that day. The crime had been captured in full color and in graphic detail. An arrest followed. A hearing date is being set in August. Two months from the killing Strushie the Cat Day in Miami was officially declared in Miami on July 26, 2017.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER? Because we are learning and observing the basest side of the Mr. or Mrs. Average American citizen – what they can do and even better, it becomes a guide to show how them they can do it. I suspect Strushies occur every single day in this country alone. And with the Internet, the Fount of all Knowledge (and free to all) you have all the secrets Including animal cruelty. Or how to build a bomb or sarin gas and of course how to make cute stuff with bleach bottles. Google it. Strushie was not hit by a car or disease ridden. He was part of a community that valued him enough to let him live his life unfettered. Why does this matter? Because we are all entitled to live without fear of monsters and hit men and danger and the chance to enrich our own communities. Yet if the killing of a defenseless and harmless cat is done so easily and then covered up – the next kill or injustice or atrocity just becomes easier and more justifiable. This is a lesson. This is why we should not have to fight to enjoy or cringe for any reason, color, faith, age or fur. It creates a domino effect. We are seeing now.

We are all Strushies. We matter. I think this is something we all MUST remember.

Back in the days when domestic disputes were shameful and unreported, my mother was the dead body in a domestic murder.

In a small blue-collar town in Massachusetts. On January 24, 1978. It was a long time ago and it was a moment ago. It was the tragic finale to many phone calls and plane ticket reservations and telephone commiseration for a mother who simply couldn’t. She fought back, she screamed, she saw a doctor, she drank, but she could not leave with my two much younger siblings, or the pony or the house or the lingering affection she carried for a man who was a serial monster. Bigamist, philanderer, narcissist, sociopath and murderer. One sib says many calls of service were made to the local police – their hands tied by 1977/1978 concepts and legalities. Another sib tells of death threats made to them on the night of my mother death. I did not know anything about this part. I only knew my mother wrote and cried and simply said “he” had a girlfriend and she was confused and didn’t know what to do. At 54 she was probably menopausal. Not much to go on. She didn’t want to move out with the children or leave the pets and the laundry list of excuses women have conjured for time immemorial. I was in Los Angeles and not welcome in her house. (Actually on February 10, 1958 I was no longer welcome in her life. At 12, I thought it was because he really loved her.) I blame myself for not listening harder and asking more questions. And I had no idea that physical violence was part of the picture. Neither of my siblings (19+ and 15) called me to ask for help. My mother had pride that went before all else. Including her funeral.

Her death certificate from that time reads COD: undetermined. A residual fear stops me from requesting a new one. She will still be dead.

She was only 54. Today is her 95th birthday. May I say she was beautiful and gentle and kind? May I say by the time I arrived at her house, anything of sentimental value that had belonged to her was gone? That her grieving husband knew I knew and it was not pleasant? That I swallowed my rage, stepped back and stayed for the children ( I am my mother’s daughter)? That I drank and sobbed and that the tables overflowed with funeral meats and that 200+ attended her funeral in Boston? That mourners continued; people I never knew, arrived in tears? That it was the same funeral home by her high school best friend’s parents? Mann & Mann. That I had played as small child in their huge house upstairs? That my family went back as close friends of the Manns? That the grieving husband read a sickening tribute?. And that my own father wept with me in stunned sorrow?

In 1978, it was simply another domestic dispute. Perhaps still in the local police records – on paper in a box; with so many others of the time.

There was no investigation. I knew of no interviews with siblings. That police never asked me anything. My grandmother thought it was a heart attack. She had just lost her only child. Was it mine to reveal? Information continued to seep through and very long after I found out the history of the man she had married in 1958. From his children; who loved my mother. I should have wondered more about the words of my dear step-brother who walked in, in 1978, crying, and said to me, sotto voce, “what did he do to her?”

I have always known it was murder. I have always known he patiently waited. I knew she did not wash down 40 or 50 pills with vodka. She didn’t ever take Darvon and that’s what they found. I know he sat beside her and watched. I have no idea how he managed to make it happen. He died five years later; alone in a rented apartment in Lawrence; the other woman long gone. He was soup when they found him. Dead five days of a heart attack in a fall from the up high liquor shelf. One he needed a step stool to reach. In a closed apartment on a sweltering summer day.

He was short and bald and had good teeth.

I could kill him again and again for his crime but she would not have wanted that. And dead never ends. They would have been married twenty years on that February 10th.

She has been gone 39 years. Since the day my broken heart and endless anger met all at once. And no one of us leftover has ever been able to move on. We try to unpack that valise, only to realize that some things travel with you forever, in your life luggage.

You can find me on FB and I have found a very fine group of FBFs with similar thoughts and opinions as mine. That’s what it’s for isn’t it. So I can be found there – just FYI.

When George Zimmerman was acquitted of the charges against him in Florida for the cold-blooded shooting of an unarmed teen-age boy it made my heart twist and hurt and ache and then I got very angry. You see I was a teen-age girl in the Civil Rights Era and I was nurtured in my feelings by my own father who did not play racism. But he never told me it was going to go away just because MLK Jr. had a dream or because I stocked a “Negro” college in the South with donated books (they had none) or because I sang (off key) Kumbayah. The entrenched ugliness of this country’s relationship to race was far too old and too polarized to make that happen quickly. We felt in 1964 we were making a dent. When I was old enough to know much more about the matter I saw the dent was made in 1865 and destroyed by the name of Jim Crow. In the brief glorious time between 1865 and Jim Crow – the black colleges were founded, black writers wrote, black politicians gave voice to the needs of a whole new group of voters. Freed men and women flocked to find work and education and a better life until they were deemed separate, oh but by the way, equal – just not in white folks domains.

If I didn’t believe that for a second (and I have always known how white folks felt) I believed after Trayvon Martin was murdered by a self declared vigilante with a gun and no reason to shoot. Trayvon had a bag of Skittles, an Arizona ice tea and was walking home while black when George Zimmerman – the poster boy for Big Bullydom, decided to stop him with no cause and no right. And then he shot him – not to scare or wound or threaten but to kill. Bang, bang Trayvon is dead. GZ has the smoking gun in his hand. A few days later (after anyone else would have been charged, jailed and held), GZ was out on the streets, begging for money on the Internet and Trayvon was stone cold and in the morgue. And when at last the trial took placed, six Bingo ladies fell in love with their handsome defendant protector who made sure none of those nasty black thugs in hoodies came into their neighborhoods (armed with Skittles and ice tea) andsaid – no – not our George. He is NOT guilty. And Trayvon is still cold and six feet under and George is a free man.This morning our president, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white mother and black father spoke on a subject he has known all his life. Being black and male in America. This is part of what he said:

But in an unusually personal moment, he began talking about the broader context of the case and the need to better understand the experiences of black men in this country.

“I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away,” Obama said. “There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.”

He went on to recount instances when he had heard “the locks click on the doors of cars” as he walked down the street. African-American men are used to getting into an elevator and seeing a fellow passenger “clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off,” he said.

“I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida,” Obama said. “And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.”

This happens every minute of every day somewhere in the land of the free and the home of th slave. It has happened to my godson, to my son’s best friend, to my best friend, to his father – a fire captain. I have been followed while shopping with my best friend – not once in a while – most of the time.

Black folks in this country have earned their anger, their mistrust, their caution and their fear and they have earned it by living while being black. For his blackness Trayvon Martin was shot down in cold blood.

For this single act.

Is every black person a hero or a savior or a man above men? Of course not – no one is any of those things iin any color, faith or gender.

But the law is skewed and it is an ugly system we support with our bigotry and preconceptions. The jurors in any case tried in any court should hear everything that happened – not just the parts they hear. And if GZ walks out a free man for murdering a child because he was black, then that same law should grant blac kmen and women the same benefit. There is no question GZ shot Taryvon Martin. The only part I cannot swallow is why he got away with it.

I have been lazy and busy for the last few month – wasting perhaps valuable and pithy thoughts on FB. But today my heart is broken and I am in mourning for a little boy I do not know. His name is Leiby Kletzky and he would have been 9 years old next week. Now he is dead. Like most of this country I paid some attention to the trial of Casey Anthony – an ordeal almost 6 years old and one that resulted in an acquittal based on lack of a case. The DA in Orlando screwed up. Whatever we learn now about this matter will always be fraught with doubts but Casey Anthony is protected by double jeopardy so she may be a pariah – but she will go on her way. I don’t much care to be very honest.

Today I got an email from a list I am on called Hatzolah – a volunteer Jewish ER service and this one caught my eye. It told of a little boy walking home from day camp in borough Park Brooklyn who was kidnapped, murdered and dismembered by a member of the same neighborhood. This happened yesterday – not three years ago. Leiby was a little Orthodox Jewish lad with glasses, a yarmulke and sidelocks and sneakers coming back from day camp. A little boy. The family’s only son. His mother was on her way to meet him but he got lost and a man with a similar look drove by and we imagine Leiby asked for directions. Leiby got into the car. We will never know what he said but tonight he will be mourned and buried.

The man presumed innocent until proven guilty Levi Aron is a quiet, religious loner who lived in his parent’s home. He was not married and he worked full time. He only known crime was pishing in public. I suspect most men have done this. One can only assume that there were very dark parts in his head and where his soul might have once been. He has supposedly admitted to what he did to Leiby. What he did was so heinous and ugly you can read the tabloids to get the details. A parent should never know such things can happen to children. Such things should never happen.

While I write this I am waiting for the real press to tell us about Leiby and his short but beloved life. The sisters who must have adored him, the mother who treasured him; the father who planned in his heart for the 13th birthday on which he would become a man. I am waiting for the outrage and the anger and the fury that accompanied the death of Caylee Anthony. A child no more or less precious than this little boy. I am waiting for the outcry, the keeners, the wailers, the sign carriers who will demonstrate for Leiby and I know I will be even sadder because none of that will happen. And I would ask you who have loved any child to make sure it does. Because it matters just as much.

Small government is alleged to mean less government interference by the government into matters which are not theirs to control. How did my vagina get into the mess?

I am well past the age of abortion or birth control worries and I have always been pro-choice – yet the idea that I could not make this choice chills me to the bone and beyond. I have made it for myself, by myself in the past. It seems I can be treated for a growth or a virus or a hip replacement without much to do, but when it comes to an unplanned pregnancy the entire government wants to look up my crotch and have a say. It is none of the government’s business. (and believe me, if someone in government needs to make a choice – chances are they will go and do exactly as they want. They will have the money and the cover-up and the arrogance to take their wife or daughter or girlfriend to the friendly and accommodating doctor and groom that womb. With no comment and no conversation.) Yet the suggestion by many of our bible thumping, holy rolling conservatives in government amounts to this: snatch and jail any woman or doctor who dares to conduct a private procedure in a private room with a patient. Some want to go so far to make sure that a miscarriage was not an act of abortion and how they plan to do this implies a look up the snatch of any suspect. Sharia anyone? Or is this just a cheap thrill conversation for a group of highly repressed, little dicked, old white men who don’t get enough vagina and will use any reason to discuss it.

Ladies and gentlemen, do you have any clue who the customers of most massage parlors are? Escort services? Whores? Who are the ones who love to kneel on peas for hours while they are told they are dickless wonders? Who like rubber and leather and the smell of numbers one and two up close and personal? Middle aged and old white men are the prime demographic for such activities. These are the same jolly chaps who want to tell women how to run their own reproductive systems as long as it includes abstinence and absolutely no abortion or birth control. They will pay to roam the vagina labyrinths wrapped in leather and studs; father children they deny and lie to their friends, families and constituents and have the arrogance then to police my crotch. Is the way they see stimulus – creation of new jobs regulating the vaginas of American women? This is America in 2011. Italy has abortion and the Pope lives there!!!

Ask them – all of them – the men and their self-righteous women – WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES? They change the subject. They won’t support welfare assistance nor will they provide healthcare. Makes you wonder if they have some side business that traffic in babies and young children. Other countries do. It’s very profitable. With the Internet it far too easy to trade, buy or negotiate damn near anything. So when you wonder “what about the babies”, wonder where they could wind up and wonder what they could wind up doing.

Government is a cesspool – we know this for sure and this country has found its way back into the morass. There is much to be learned from the history of the very white and very rich and very amoral. Somewhere they all meet in the Bohemian Grove of the Vagina Labyrinth – not really understanding or unwilling to learn why this is the last place on earth they have any right to be.

Sadly, there was no music in the Akron Ohio courtroom that railroaded Ms Kelley Wiliams- Bolar. It should should have included this treasure from the Good Ol’ Days of whuppin’ slaves and sellin’cotton.

I am shocked at the lack of outrage. Where is Morris Dees, Al, Jesse, The NAACP and anyone else who could stir an uproar over this late term abortion of justice? Why wasn’t she bailed? Who was her lawyer? I don’t hear much very good lately about Ohio but its neighbor Indiana, is ass over teakettle in KKK membership. state lines must blur. I gotta say this one tops even my wildest, sickest imagination. Kucinich sues over olive pits. Think about it.

According to one of the many reports I have read the DA’s office insisted on the charges. Yet they plea bargain rapists. This woman was sent to jail because she wanted her daughters to be safe. She lived in public housing and fudged on her address. Capital Felony what? And the school system wants restitution and this woman, this mother, about to become a teacher, is now a felon and can’t teach. This woman is my hero. By her actions and her love for education and her kids she has been screwed up the ass by the State of Ohio and where is the outrage? I can hardly type for my own anger. Who is the DA and who is the jury and who is the judge and what is going on in the land of the free and the home of the brave? The school system of Akron spent $6 grand following this arch criminal . Don’t cry poormouth Akron.

I am so tied up in knots on this one I think I must do some cooling down and additional research on this matter, Like finding out who the jurors were; her lawyer, the ADA and WHY it happened.

This an outrage. This is almost as ugly as Emmett Till. This has to be repaired.

Someone must step forward and reverse this outrage and fast. Who has the balls????

Twelve years ago my husband was pistol whipped where he worked. The assailant hit him several time on the left side of his head leaving him with a closed head trauma, permanent disability, severe headaches and laundry lists of ongoing side effects that have gotten worse instead of better. For many years we thought this injury was caused by a closed fist until an eyewitness mentioned it had been a gun butt that was used. The men were armed. That is the full disclosure part.

When the framers wrote our constitution the second amendment was logical to me. A war had just been fought, trespass and killings still were a part of the landscape of 1776. Added to that many Americans shot for food. Disallowing guns to me seemed like a bad idea. I often think today we confuse the framers with the store front fortune tellers who can see all and tell all for a price. The men who wrote the constitution were not seers. They did not appear to have divine vision neither did they claim to have insider future info that guided them. I think they wrote a damn fine outline for a new and revolutionary country. An untried experiment. Until the American and French revolted royalty pretty much called the shots and it was an iffy business. In France (pre-1789), the birth of prince and then a princess was called the “choix du roi”. First you have an heir and then you marry off your daughter to another crown prince and gain more of everything. Marie Antoinette was an arch duchess of Austria. So one of the jobs of the framers was to abolish this entitlement of one ruling class and make everyone equal (sort of). What I’m not sure of is how long they expected this country to last or grow. Certain inalienable rights however were declared and bearing arms was one of them. You did not have to be a soldier of the king to strike fear into people who threatened your sovereignty.

Sadly the folks who like to shoot guns and desire to own and wear them are not always the good citizens. The bad guys too are equally entitled to have them. The 2nd amendment said nothing about shooting nor did it specify under what circumstances the arms could be used. Talk about your open to interpretation clause. The framers simply (I think) did not want Mr. John Q. American to be invaded by gun-toting foreigners who were going to steal their land and freedom. And I agree.

I am confused today about guns and gun laws and killers (well – not the killers). I do not own a gun for one reason only. I fear I would use it and I do not want that responsibility. Like the bell, once the bullet leaves the chamber it has its own path and once it’s on it, people can get hurt or killed. Like yesterday. So while I respect the second amendment for its desire to protect Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic – I am not sure enough people really understand and truly respect the amendment and how profound it is. We live in confusing times. And as an aside – I think it is time for SCOTUS member Scalia to have at least the Minnesota Multiphasic